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[ She accepts the offer with a nod, not feeling strongly enough about asserting her ability to pay for herself to go through the bother of fighting over it. Besides which, Bruce seems to want to do it. There’s a sadness about him that all of the tiny smiles can’t erase, and if this in any way helps him, she’s willing to take the kindness for what it is.

Her attention shifts from him to the paper he places on the table, but he’s already moving away when she glances up again, the words fading unspoken on her tongue. Betty’s eyes slip back to the paper and the photograph it contains.

The caption beneath the picture isn’t necessary. One glimpse is all it takes to tell her who it is she’s looking at, and with careful fingers, she picks it up to get a closer look. This Bruce’s Betty Ross. A professor at Culver University. It’s not as clear as it could be, but she can see the woman well enough. She’s beautiful, and Betty thinks that the two of them must look good together. Right. But she’s presumably still there at Culver, or at least in another world, and Bruce is here in some other dimension far away from her.

Betty looks at the picture nearly as long as Bruce is gone from the table, but shortly before he returns, she delicately folds it again. He loves her. This Bruce loves his Betty Ross enough to carry around a reminder of her.

That in itself is motivation enough to see that he finds his way back to her. ]

[It'd be far more effective to have her come here in terms of getting to be with her, a fact that hasn't escaped Bruce. He'd even discussed it, in couched terms, with Annabeth last week. Despite all the drawbacks of being here, the benefits for him more than outweigh that, and he'd have to be a lot more self-deluded than he is to have missed it. If Betty were here, there wouldn't be any reason they couldn't be together. Live together. Work together.

The fact that it's probably not going to happen, and instead he gets half-taunted and half-appeased with this other version of her, hasn't escaped him either.

Bruce tries not to think about it too deeply as he places their orders, and short minutes later returns to the table with them. Fried and steamed finger food never takes that long. There's one big plate with an assortment of dim sum on it, and after he sets it on the table, he picks up the picture again even before he sits. It's carefully and deliberately returned to his pocket.]

You don't look exactly the same, [he comments out loud, addressing the elephant in the room as he settles into his seat, breaking his chopsticks apart.] You definitely recognized me, though.

[He can't help being somewhat curious.]

[ It isn’t until he’s settled, and the picture is once more stowed away in the safety of his pocket, that Betty reaches out to pick up the second pair of chopsticks. There’s no way she’s risking something happening to it simply because she hasn’t had a meal in weeks. It’s too important to him. ]

You don’t look exactly like him either.

[ She snaps the chopsticks with a twist of her wrist. This isn’t the first time she’s had Asian food. She’s eaten with the things before. ]

You’re taller, which I couldn’t tell on the video. Your hair’s shorter. Not by much, but it’s not quite as long as his was. You aren’t wearing glasses and he almost always wore his.

[ As she talks, she looks him over again, gaze scanning his hair and his eyes – the same color – and his expression. ]

Your eyes are the same color, though. And your face is almost the same. Someone less familiar with him might not have made the connection so fast, but I’ve met another Bruce Banner from another dimension. There were a few subtle differences then too, but… [ She shrugs. ] I’ll always know who you are.

[It's interesting hearing the differences, though he's somewhat self-conscious about being scrutinized so closely, even though he'd asked for it.

Bruce eats a few potstickers while she talks, just to give himself something as a distraction. Her final comment earns her a lop-sided smile, freer with her than he is with anyone else.]

I can put my glasses on if it helps, [he quips.] They get damaged too much when I wear them all the time, and they can be hard to find. I haven't had a real proscription in... I don't know. Since I used to live with Betty. [Normally it's difficult to force her name out of his mouth, but somehow it's the easiest thing in the world when he's looking directly at some form of her.

This unsolicited offering of information, an explanation behind one of his inexplicable habits, is another privilege granted to her solely because of who she is.]

I'd say I should've recognized you sooner, but, uh, I don't think I can be blamed. [He'd never in a million years think to look for Betty's face in a Hulk. He tries not to look for her face at all.]

No, I don't blame you. [ She shakes her head with an understanding smile. ] I don't recognize myself like that and I know it's me. [ A moment's pause, then she rolls her eyes. ] Most of the time.

[ It's still a work in progress, but it doesn't cost her anything or upset her to talk about it. This is her life now, whatever she might think about it. She accepts it. She has to. ]

And you don't have to wear your glasses either. You look good like this. It's okay to be different. Trust me. I know.

[ As far as Betty's concerned, the last thing he needs to be is more like the man she knows. ]

No, it was just a joke, [he reassures her.] Everything I've heard, I'd rather be different. [No question about that.

But he has to admit some fairly intense curiosity about how she operates with her... other half. In his mental narrative, he still has difficulty applying the word Hulk at all, to himself and much less to Betty.]

You don't mind talking about it? Your, uh. Being red. I don't want to press, but I'm, well, I'd have to be dead not to be curious.

Me? No.

[ Smiling, she shakes her head and reaches for one of the potstickers. In marked contrast to the Hulk, she's dainty about taking a bite, knowing that her other half would have shoved the whole thing into her mouth already. ]

I'll tell you anything you want to know. As much as I can, anyway. There are still some things I'm not all that clear on and some memories are a little disjointed. But for the most part, I think I can give you some decent answers.

[He's starting to relax enough to stop constantly comparing her to the Betty he's more familiar with, and take her on her own terms. It requires a whole lot less mental gymnastics, and fewer peskily misdirected feelings of longing and attachment.

Not that Bruce can get rid of all of them. For all he tries, he doesn't have absolute control over his emotions and Betty is, as she's always been, his Achilles' heel with them.]

How does it work for you? [Okay, that's vague. He clarifies,] How does it feel. You obviously remember everything, and it's not... traumatic. But you're different, so you have to notice a change.

[ For a moment, she's quiet, gaze abstracted, as she thinks about it. He's right. It's not traumatic and she does notice a difference. ]

At first, it was anger. I couldn't control when I made the change; I just got angry and it happened. Which was actually a concern for a while. I didn't care, I was still out of control, but because of the instability of the energy absorption, they thought I was going to get stuck like that. Obviously I didn't. There was some magic involved and I figured out the rest of it, sort of. Now it's, I don't know, I guess it's still mostly anger.

[ The corner of her mouth pulls into a slight, awkward almost-smile. ]

I still have a lot of unresolved... frustration and it makes it easier to change. Coming back isn't as easy. It's harder to get my emotions under control when I'm like that. It feels like I need a moment of... maybe clarity? [ She shrugs uncertainly. ] Mostly it's easier to change back to this if I get scared.

[He eats methodically as he listens to her talk, not put off his food by the seriousness of the topic mostly by long habit at eating under a myriad of circumstances. He makes careful mental notes of what she says, storing them in the meticulously preserved part of his memory devoted to Betty, which is expanding now.]

So it's not completely dissimilar, [he notes.] Still anger and difficult to control. I think I get-- worse with fear, though, not more human. [There's not many people he'd admit that so freely and matter of factly to.]

The rest is the same? The... strength and invulnerability?

Worse? You mean it makes it easier to get angrier?

[ That’s been her experience with Bruce and Hulk, at least. But then, she isn’t sure that she’s ever really seen Hulk scared. Or Bruce, for that matter. Not for a very long time.

How does she measure up to the Hulk? Not the same. He’d gone out of his way to remind her that she was less than he was. She could still hold her own against him, though, and to her mind, that counts despite what he’d said. ]

It depends. Normally, yes, I’d say I’m about as strong as he is. We fought a few times and each time it was kind of a draw. But there are some differences. I heal fast, but I can’t regenerate my organs and limbs like he can. When I change, my blood’s corrosive. And there was… We—Red Hulks can absorb energy. I’m not really sure how and I haven’t had much experience with it. All I know is that it’s a possibility and it almost killed my father, but he eventually got it sorted out, so... [ She lifts her hands in a gesture of uncertainty. ] I guess it's something I can do?

More likely to change, [he clarifies.] I don't think I've ever... actually changed from anger alone. [It's too easy to control. Too easy to prevent. Bruce has plenty of experience with that end of things, but fear, that he's never been as successful at.

Then he's listening soberly to her explanation, frown gradually growing deeper. A list of alarming questions immediately crop up, all demanding attention. It's unfeasible to ask all of them at once so he has to pick one. That the Hulk can regenerate organs and limbs is news to him, and might not apply to him, but somehow Bruce suspects that it does. It's another nail in the coffin on his immortality theory, and a grim one.]

Your-- you mean this happened to your father, too? Isn't that-- [The sheer ridiculousness of the idea is suddenly taken over with the hilarious irony of it, and Bruce can't help a snort and a twisted hint of a smirk.] I wouldn't wish it on anyone, but that's... some kind of comeuppance.

[ That's surprising. She's seen her ex-husband change for a number of reasons, but anger has often been one of them. Another difference between them, though what it means, she doesn't know.

She can't miss the snort that she just knows is a kind of laughter, or the ghost of a smirk that plays across Bruce's lips. It confirms what he'd said earlier about her father; there's no love lost between them. Unfortunately for Betty, it isn't that simple, and instead of seeing the humor in it, she just smiles sadly.

Her relationship with her father is as complicated as the one she once had with her ex-husband. ]

It started with my father. He wanted... I'm not really sure. To finally beat the Hulk. To save me. A combination of both, probably. So he joined up with Samson, thinking he was doing something good, but Samson turned on everyone and was working with Sterns. They turned him into a weapon too, had him kill a lot of people. Eventually Hulk came and put a stop to it, Bruce and my father made peace after he got himself back under control, and Captain America made him an Avenger. And then he got a LMD girlfriend.

[ Of all the people to have found a relationship that actually works, she never thought it would be between her father and an android. But they're happy now. That counts for something. ]

Weird, huh?

[Bruce doesn't like this side of himself. He isn't proud of it and he isn't comfortable with it; he suppresses it as much as he can. But there is, somewhere inside him, a penchant for taking satisfaction in the tragedies of others (schadenfreude) and especially when he thinks they deserve it. He doesn't truly want to see anyone hurt, but when he doesn't hold any blame for it and couldn't have done anything to stop it-- thus absolving him of guilt-- sometimes he takes a sick satisfaction in seeing others contend with the things he usually has to all alone.

Betty and her father is a relationship he's fully aware is a complicated one, and Bruce doesn't want to make her decide between them. He never has. Betty had chosen him of her own free will, and he understands that family isn't so simple to dismiss. Seeing that sad smile, he immediately regrets indulging in his sadistic side, and sobers up. It's probably for the best if he doesn't press her on that topic, and steers the conversation away. There's no easy answers to be found with fathers.]

Bizarre, [he agrees readily, quirking a wry smile.] I almost can't believe it. Uh, anything you've said, really. Except Samson working with Sterns.

[Bruce shakes his head.] I'm pretty sure he tipped off your father when he saw me with you. Samson, that is. I don't know for sure, but it's... suspicious. I guess some things really don't change.

[ Samson too is a complicated case. Once a trusted friend, then a bitter enemy. It seems like their entire life has been like that. Ever since the gamma bomb. ]

Samson... [ She sighs, shaking her head in disappointed resignation. ] He was a friend once, someone who fought with us instead of against us. But I know he's always had feelings for me and I think, I don't know, I think he let them blind him or something. Made him think that he could choose what was best for me better than I could.

[ And who knows, maybe he could. He'd made her a Hulk, and so far that was working out all right. ]

He'd always been jealous of Bruce. I guess that's true for the one you know, too.

I can't blame the one I know, [he says ruefully.] Well, I blame him for betraying Betty. Not for... not trusting me.

She'd been with him for years when I suddenly turned up again. Pretty suspect.

She was with him for real?

[ Maybe it's her last encounter with Samson that's left such a bad taste in her mouth, but she can't help the look of disgust that passes over her face. ]

That's--Yours must be better than mine. I tried to seduce him once, Bruce was sleeping with the Abomination's wife and I was feeling petty, but I never went through with it. That's just... He's not really my type.

[Bruce hadn't blamed Betty for either moving on, or her choice in men. Samson had seemed like a nice enough guy to him, unbearably perceptive but genuinely caring toward Betty. He certainly hadn't ever hurt her and that's all Bruce feels he has a right to judge.

Betty's disgust here is a surprise.] With Blonsky's wife? [is even more a surprise, and now he has his own disgust.] You really need to stop dropping these things on me. I feel like my brain is going to short out.

[That's mostly a joke. But only mostly.]

Samson didn't seem that bad, [he goes on, answering the actual topic now.] Mostly just worried about her. I do seem pretty... shady.

Are you sure? [ Her eyebrow arches in challenge, though she's only teasing. She doesn't want to actually cause him distress. ] I haven't told you the really crazy stuff yet.

[ And maybe she never will. Perhaps protecting Bruce also means protecting him from what he is in another universe. It's easier, she thinks, just to focus on Samson. ]

He wasn't that bad in the beginning. But I think that the expectations of being a superhero started to wear on him. Especially when he effectively appointed himself Hulk's keeper. That was never going to end well.

Unless it becomes relevant, I'd rather keep my mental faculties intact, [he says wryly.]

He was definitely never a superhero where I'm from. Imagining him as the... as his keeper is just-- laughable. [Bruce doesn't outright dislike Samson. He was important to Betty, regardless of the status of their relationship. But trust or respect him enough to imagine him effectively keeping the Hulk contained, absolutely not.]

It's kind of laughable where I'm from, too. [ She rolls her eyes, thinking back to the various encounters Samson and Hulk have had over the course of her life. ] They fought a few times, and he could hold his own for a little while, but he always lost eventually.

[ Her world is evidently vastly different from Bruce's, and without knowing what's the same - if anything is the same - she can't really feel comfortable discussing any of it. Better, she thinks, to turn the conversation away from it entirely. ]

Anyway, enough about him. Tell me more about this whole turtle thing.

[ That, at least, should be a less emotional subject. She hopes so, anyway. ]

Edited 2013-09-20 22:32 (UTC)

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